A quick post here to show a few more photos including progress shots from the cake I submitted as my entry into the ‘Kiwi as – in sugar art’ collaboration.
This collab involved a huge bunch of awesome New Zealand bakers, each creating a cake or cookie masterpiece around the theme of… New Zealand! So bring on the Kiwiana: there’s everything from hand-modelled native wildlife through to elegant Maori designs, whatever inspired us the most about the beautiful country we call home. Please do check it out here – you’ll see the 40-something entries put together as name cards by the amazing collab organiser, each with a story and a talented sugar artist behind it. See if you can spot mine!
My own contribution was primarily inspired by the eels in the Avon River that I walk past during my weekday lunchtimes. Once I’d met Mr Eel, I took inspiration from the summers during my childhood when my dad would help my sister and I to catch eels in the stream at the back of the house, using an orange rod with a loop of plastic threaded through. And since I wanted to get more experience with making figurines, I made myself as a little girl 🙂
Originally I thought that this cake would double as my husband’s birthday cake and was planning to put a figurine of him on it, too. Anyway, as things go, his birthday came and went before I started working on this…and it turns out that a ‘fake cake’ (styrofoam dummy) is a better medium for someone like me who loves to take my time and enjoy the decorating process. Even so, I stuck with my plan to incorporate one of NZ’s beautiful braided rivers as a nod to N’s childhood spent swimming in the Opihi River of South Canterbury. It was super fun marbling the blue fondant to get the rivery colours!
Here are some work-in-progress shots:
It was such a fantastic thing to be part of and I’m looking forward to the next cake collaboration!
Sweet nor'westerly 